Hiruzen sat in his office, gazing upon the crystal ball on his desk while smoking his pipe. During his younger years, he would go out on patrol, really to get out and get fresh air, but as the village expanded and he got older, things got more complicated. He could still physically do the task, but the issues of him being the Hokage arose. He was required to have guards, and if he went on patrol, his guards would go with him. Which means he and four Anbu ninjas were going on patrol. Which the Uchias would take as an insult, Danzo would deliver an underhanded comment about it. Another ninja in the village would find out, and then they would talk, and regular civilians would find out, which would make them nervous, destabilizing the market. New paperwork would then appear on his desk, making him want to go on patrol, to get fresh air.
That was to say that he would now use his crystal ball to patrol. It gave Hiruzen peace of mind. In theory, everything was fine, and there were no big issues in the village. But believing and seeing were two different things.
The reason for his eagerness to unwind was that, in fact, he had just had a big argument with his son Asuma. He had wanted to join the twelve guardian ninja, but after the Nine Tails attack, Hiruzen wanted to encourage Jonin to take students. When Itachi Uchiha, as well as a few other students, graduated from the academy early, Fugaku came to Hiruzen with the request.
Fugaku named his second-born son after Hiruzen’s father. Having his firstborn son train under Hiruzen’s firstborn son was a blatant show of pandering but also an olive branch from the head of one of the most prideful clans in the ninja world. Danzo tried to interject with another Jonin, but Fugaku recognized the man as one of Hatake’s former teammates, and a heated discussion arose. By the end of the meeting, Asuma had a new team.
The argument Hiruzen’s just had with his son was all about timing. The Daimyo was coming to the village soon, and Hiruzen agreed to let his son's team escort the man and his entourage, but Asuma wanted to make it a much longer mission. Escort the man here, protect the man while he is here, and then escort the man and his entourage back to the capital. Each of those was their own mission, and it looked like favoritism if he gave all those missions to his son.
Hiruzen wanted to just give the return trip mission to his son in the hopes that Asuma would talk to Nashi Uzumaki while he was at the capital. Naruto was getting older, and the woman had found every excuse not to return to the village. One of his anbu members found out that the young woman was pregnant but didn’t know who the father was.
Nashi worked as the midwife of the wives of the Daimyo’s entourage. It was a busy job, seeing as most of them had harems. Making good money, doing a job she enjoyed, and with a child on the way, Hiruzen could not blame the woman for not wanting to return to the leaf village. After Kushina’s death, the only reason Nashi would return was Naruto.
She sent a letter with Orchimaru stating that she would be happy to take Naruto in, but at her home in the capital. But Naruto was the jinchuriki and must stay in the village for everyone's safety. Nashi had enough influence in the capital, and she, not being a ninja, Hiruzen could not order her to return.
Amon would be able to convince the woman, but Hiruzen had plans for his successor. If the problem in the land of snow was as bad as reports said it was, Amon would be the best man for the job. The problem with sending Amon was his team. It had been less than three months since he was given his Genin, and they were not naturally talented in combat.
The Land of Snow was going to be an A to S Rank mission, and his team was not at that level yet. He could leave his team behind, but Amon wouldn’t want to do that, and the man was on the clock. Amon needed to train his students to be chunin as fast as possible to show the clan heads how he would grow the village under his leadership, and the Land of Snow mission would take one to two months at a minimum.
He could send another team, but Amon was his best negotiator—strong, experienced, and famous. The only other Jonins who fit that criteria were clan heads or Jiraiya. The clan heads would not want to leave the village for such an extended period of time, and Jiraiya was difficult to contact, and his spy network required constant upkeep. Jiraiya could do it, but the cost would be too high. Orchimaru was currently working with Danzo on a number of projects and was stuck between the village and the capital.
Honesty Hiruzen thought of just letting the Land of Snow problem go and hoping it never became a big issue, but the chakra armor demanded a response. If the Leaf village didn’t go, every other village would. Conflict between the Sand and Mist had increased, leaving Stone and Cloud. One or both of those villages would hear about the coup and send their people to investigate.
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When Hiruzen brought the issue up with the Council, Homura and Koharu said to leave the Snow be. If the Armor becomes a problem, they could deal with it later. The village can gather more information from a distance and strike when we are ready. A good plan, if the Armor were as powerful as he feared, it would be best for the other villages to deal with the issue first, and by then, they would come up with a workaround, or the Leaf would. Hiruzen would have gone with their plan, but Danzo spoke up. Danzo liked the idea of an armor that, at a bare minimum, could stop genjutsu. He wanted it for Anbu and, more importantly, out of the hands of other villages.
Hiruzen kept searching the village passively, hoping an answer to his problems would appear. While looking around, he saw Amon’s team, but no Amon patrolling the village's lumber district with an Uchiha he recognized. Kengo, who Hiruzen last heard was retired after the man was maimed on a mission, was not wearing a headband and was walking with no sign of difficulty.
It looked like he was giving Amons' students pointers about moving as a unit, using the pallets of sliced wood as obstacles that would get in the way of their formation. Amons' team would have to change their formation on the fly and know where their teammates were and where they would be once they changed.
Most ninja teams would find the task difficult to do and would get annoyed with each other if the formation kept changing, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for Amon’s team. They picked up the formations fast and, more impressively, could easily predict where each other would be, even without being within line of sight, nor telling each other their location. Whatever training Amon was doing with his students, it was working when teamwork was involved.
A fact Hiruzen could tell Kengo noticed. From a defense’s formation when they would be in a good spot to get ambushed, to a more aggressive version if they spotted a enemy. They moved around the obstacles in whatever formation best suited their surroundings. They weren’t the best formation for patrolling, keeping look out to multiple different locations so they could see any issue they needed to deal with at a moments notice, but being comfortable enough with your teammates actions and able to predict what each other would do with out having to communicate with each other so early in their Genin carers. Very impressive indeed.
Watching the young team patrol, Hiruzen saw Kengo’s son, Shisui Uchiha, check on his father. Shisui also brought Itachi along with him. From their distance, it looked like they were friends.
Kengo and his son talked while Amon's team perched themselves as lookouts. While the two talked, Fugaku's son looked at Amon's team. He looked at each of them one at a time but settled his gaze on the boy.
If Hiruzen could recall, the boy in question, Iemitsu, got visibly nervous under the younger boy's gaze and started to fidget. After a few seconds, Iemitsu called out to Itachi. The young Uchiha spoke, and it got the attention of the others. Some words were exchanged, and it appeared that Itachi asked a question because both Iemitsu and a more petite girl pointed to the other, the taller girl on the team, who pointed to herself with a confident smirk and her head held high.
Itachi gave out what was clearly a challenge, which the other accepted. Iemitsu looked like he wanted to decline, but Kengo spoke up at that moment, and everyone nodded, begrudgingly in Iemitsu's case. The four-man group became a six-man group as they continued their patrol.
Hiruzen didn’t bother to look to see where Amon was. The man kept himself hidden with his seals all the time, and he would have to send Anbu out to look for him if he wanted to find him. Hiruzen just continued with his own patrol until he went back to see what the young Genin were up to.
Hiruzen saw Might Guy running around the village on his hands, a young girl painting a landscape of the village on a rooftop, and a young boy with a long scar running across his nose, grieving in front of the Memorial Stone.
Hiruzen decided that his paperwork could wait and instructed his guards to follow him. A little less than ten minutes later, Hiruzen was there. He could see another young boy watching the crying one, but decided that the first one needed his attention.
The young boy's name was Iruka Umino, and his parents died heroically during the Nine-Tails attack. Hiruzen had heard the story before; he had heard it too often. Hiruzen hated himself. He couldn’t recall the faces of the two ninjas that the boy in front of him was crying for. Names and faces ran through his head, all with similar stories.
Once upon a time, he could place a face with every name on the Memorial Stone, but now he can’t. The boy was orphaned and alone in a cruel world, A fate he didn’t deserve, A fate that didn’t belong to the son of heroes, and yet…for all of Hiruzen's strength, he could not stop it. More and more would share Iruka’s fate. Orchimaru, Tsunade, Kushina, and now Iruka.
Hiruzen told the boy that his parents were heroes and that they would be proud of him. He then asked what Iruka would talk to them about if they were here with them. The boy was having a difficult time at the academy, and sometimes he was the one doing pranks and sometimes he was the one being pranked. A couple of difficult subjects at school. Normal child things. Hiruzen double-checked that the boy's finances were up to task. They were a small inheritance, and his subsidy for attending the academy was enough—a small silver lining.
He stayed with the boy for a bit. Just talking, gave him a few pointers about the difficult subjects at school. Gave a few suggestions about pranks to get back at people, Hiruzen knew he was going to regret that, but it made the boy smile, which to Hiruzen, made it worth the trouble. All in all, Hiruzen stayed and talked with Iruka, reminding him that the world hadn’t ended. The fox came up, but Hiruzen managed to distract the boy and changed the subject.
By the end, the boy was smiling and looking forward to school tomorrow. Hiruzen took it as a win and escorted the boy from the memorial. With that done, he sent the boy home to get some rest and decided to go check on what trouble Itachi and Amon's team were getting up to.
